Come on man hi scott hi kevin hi amy we have a really great group here tonight we had over 150 people register and we already have over 100 in the room or almost 100 in the room so it’s going to be a great great evening so sonia we are ready to go
All right hi everybody for those of you who don’t know me i am sia james gator the class of 2014. i am the chair of the multicultural committee for the alumni association board uh this committee is brand new this is our first event i’m hoping that we have many many many
More which we will we want to start really highlighting and celebrating all of our multicultural alumni our students our student orgs and we and by doing these kind of events holding these discussions holding more interactive and fun events that’s how we’re going to do it and it will also help the client
The climate that stetson has seen is not so good over the years because we’ll start having some really honest conversations with one another so i want to welcome you and thank you so much for being here with us this evening we’re going to start the event with a short video
On the history and legacy and celebration of african-american greek letter organization organizations so renee want you go ahead and do your intro and run that video so one thing we want to point out is we’ll be showing this video and one other video but please note that these videos do
Have music attached to them and we will be having closed captioning on it so you still will be able to see or read what is being said i am divine i am i am greater service greater progress i am sigma gamma cultural for service service for humanity i am
587 by culture and by merit i am alpha kappa alpha first of all servants of all we shall transcend all i am alpha phi alpha community conscious action oriented i am zeta phi beta achievement energy for the human endeavor i am kappa alpha intelligence is the torch of wisdom
I am delta sigma theta friendship is essential to the soul i am omega I am i am i am i am i am divine i am divine i am divine divine the history legacy and celebration of african-american greek-lettered organizations Thank you renee so now i am going to ask olivia she is going to give us the information you students need on cultural credit hi everybody good evening so tonight to receive cultural credit at the end of the program i’ll be putting a survey into the chat box
Um just to get your feedback and some ideas for future programming we really appreciate everything that you provide so please take your time with it um and a couple other things if um you have any tech issues or need help with anything uh go ahead and put it in the
Chat box we’ll be monitoring that or raise your hand if you have a question um so that’ll be a couple different ways to communicate with the panelists so thank you thank you olivia so now we are going to do the introductions of our panel participants for this evening um
First up uh christopher gator who yes is my husband who i wrangled into this christopher if you could um he is not as that’s an alum but he is greek so i actually provide his perspective christopher if you could just introduce yourself um your organization and what you do professionally
Okay can you hear me yes okay well my name is christopher gator and i’m representing um kappa alpha psi fraternity incorporated um i am currently um a registered nurse i work with uh the halifax health system over in daytona beach on the psychiatric emergency department um so i
Deal with baker acts basically and i’m currently working on my psychiatric nurse practitioner degree and as far as kappa alpha psi we were amongst the first uh all black greek letter fraternities we were founded on the campus of indiana university at bloomington on january 5th um 1911 by elder watson diggs
And uh actually um actually it was stated in the video but our philosophy centers around achievement in every field of human endeavor thank you christopher joanna you want to introduce yourself hey y’all my name is joanna white i graduated from stetson in 2019. i’m a member of
I am a member of suma gamma rail sorority incorporated cinema gamer road was founded november 12 1922 at butler university in indiana indianapolis and i feel like something important to mention about cindy gamarro is the fact that it was founded in indiana in 1922. so so something that
A lot of people don’t know is that 1920s was when the rise of the ku klux klan happened and so not only was stimi camaro founded at a predominantly white institution that’s similar to stetson but our organization was literally located across the street from the grand wizard of the kkk
So seven strong african-american females who were educators decided to push past all of this in order to create this organization that we now see today our motto is greater service greater progress because of our upbringing we realize that you cannot progress unless you put your body into it and
Unless you put your service into it so that’s a little snippet about semi-gamero thank you i did not know that that is very interesting thank you joanna uh patricia hi everyone my name is patricia medina i am also from sigma gamma rose sorority incorporated i okay so i love
Seeing my sister here tonight and i’m so glad to see so many people here she gave you a brief uh overview about our history and i think it’s really important that this sorority is on stetson in particular because of its founding on a pwi a predominantly white institution in indiana
And especially during the year that joanna and i were at stetson i’m class of 2017. so we were on settings campus during 2016 and uh so glad to be part of sigma gamma raw sorority incorporated all right all right and last but not least uh alethea good evening everyone
I’m alethia benello and i’m a proud member of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated founded in 1908 on the campus of howard university in washington d.c and as we know that one of our most high profile members is our vice president kamala harris it is certainly an honor to be a part of
This sorority who believes in as many of the divine nine organizations in service and we certainly carry ourselves in a way that is not only befitting of our sorority sisters those who were initiated with us who we call our lying sisters but also those who came before us and
Those who we pave away to be able to aspire to be just like so many of us we certainly endow and endeavor in ways of achievement both scholarly as well as achieving in life many members of alpha kappa alpha sorority are school teachers principals leaders in education and of course
In politics in really all walks of life but there are several of us that are educators currently um well actually i am a proud member of the class of 1998 graduating from stetson university and currently i am the operations manager for a healing paradigm which is a psychological practice psychology practice
As well as the program director for the center african american center for global politics and human rights based here in atlanta thank you and i apologize we do have one more panel participant justin hello everybody i am so honored to be here tonight uh my name is justin roberson and i’m a current
Junior at stetson university and a proud member of the phi beta sigma fraternity incorporated all right uh fun fact about me i am one of the original seven charter members to establish the gamma rosetta chapter here at stetson university and i see a lot of my uh a lot of my line brothers
And um another my chapter members here as well and i thank you all for being here to support you know to support our college and whatnot a little bit about our organization we were founded january 9 1914 on the campus of howard university by our three honorable founders
And our motto is stated as culture for service and service for humanity our organization is an organization that prides itself on a inclusivity and also b giving back to the greater community we believe that in order to get the best out of ourselves we need to be able to feel
The greater community we need to be able to give back to those who have given so much to us and i’m a proud member of this fraternity thank you so much thank you to each one of our panel participants and thank you justin i’m sorry i didn’t forget you
But i forgot you my bad that’s not good it’s all good so as i um we kind of stated a little bit we do have um some giveaways uh fraternity and sorority involvement has donated five long-sleeve tie-dye shirts so i am going to ask the question
And we’ll see the first two people i think to answer it in the chat box will receive a shirt so the question is what is the name of the collective group of african-american fraternities and sororities renee will be handling the giveaways so actually in the chat that is not the
Answer we’re looking for while divine nine is an answer that is not the answer we’re looking for oh i see there’s a couple in there now oh i saw it i saw it i did too okay i did see it all right sounds like people are awesome awesome
All right thank you so much guys and there are two more questions so there are two more opportunities to win a shirt so we’re going to jump right into our discussion this evening and i’m going to pose uh four maybe five questions to the group uh of our panelists um i’m asking the
Panelists to about a minute or two for their responses um once we wrap up then we will move on to the next question okay so our first question well you guys kind of already gave a brief history and the mission of your organizations and again thank you it was much history there
And a lot of information i did not even know so how would you describe your organization’s experience at stetson and i’ll start with patricia i had really great moments and i had some really tough moments um one of the great things was that uh the person in charge of sorority and fraternity engagement
Um was ryan manning and he was really instrumental in helping us to do a few quite a few things the first being was he helped us to get land on stetson um i hope it’s still there i know we have a beautiful sign there that was donated by joanna white’s father or parents
Um but he along with lua helped us to find a space on stetson’s campus that we could call our own and it was really thanks it’s it’s it was really important for us to have that on stetson to be acknowledged and originally we had just asked for a tree
And they actually gave us land so that was really really wonderful the other thing was ryan provided a way for our sorority to be included in a conference that happened every spring and he found a way to provide a scholarship for two of our members to attend that
Conference uh every year which i thought was phenomenal um we really appreciated it because we were able to go out and and represent stetson which i thought was wonderful um having uh worked with other sororities was really nice um and we had a deal with some things but
I don’t want to take up too much time okay sorry but it was election year and and it was a tough year um people said some things and did some things and and they were just showing themselves and it made it really really difficult to be on campus at times
So that’s the good and the bad thank you joanna you want to weigh in well she doesn’t want to talk about it but i will so this happened around the time that i actually came into the organization so i was on the stetson university mock trial team
And i wasn’t able to get go to an event that symbol gamer road was having because i had to go to a competition so it wasn’t that long after the election that the kkk like hoods and all actually walked on to stetson’s campus and they were supposed to actually hold
An event but that but somebody saw them they alerted p save and so they ended up canceling the event so that’s actually kind of one of the reasons why i mentioned the history of simmigamarow in their fight with the kkk as well because it’s one of the things that actually pushed me further
To go into the organization because if you look at these women that came before me they were ordinary women like i was and so the fact that they were able to push through it actually gave me the courage to go ahead and push through as well so i saw the strength in the
Organization and that was one of the things that made semi gamma-ray more attractive to me also i’ve i know he’s on the call up i see him in my corner so it was the first time that i ever did anything like try to be a fraternity sweetheart anything
And so i remember colin was the one who was hosting the organization yes i see you waving hi so that year i had actually tried to reach out to the fraternities and sororities at stetson’s campus because they thought that at the time phi beta sigma had come onto campus
They thought that our two organizations were isolating ourselves when in reality we just been reaching out but this is like the bad part where it kind of felt like we were getting shunned because i remember one year that we were actually i was actually talking to a different fraternity just like why
Didn’t you reach out to cindy gamarro and then he looked at me and he was just like be honest if we would have reached out to you would you even say yes i said yeah of course and then that’s around that time that’s when colin actually reached out just like hey you
Want to do this and so then just like yeah sure and so that was the one time well one of the few times that we actually felt included within the stetson community and so i know that even though we’re not on the org campus right now i know that’s something that
May still be a struggle so that’s like also it’s been really good it’s been really fun we did a whole bunch of stuff it’s been rap it’s been amazing but you also need to acknowledge acknowledge the history because if you don’t know your history you’re doomed to repeat it so
I took too much time it’s okay alithea do you want to weigh in wow it’s amazing that it’s bringing up memories so of course i went attended stetson in the mid to late 1990s a lot of things happened uh my first year there is when the o.j simpson trial was taking place and
So there was a lot of tension around that um between white students some white faculty and um staff um and the black students on campus also i think also the millionaire march was um took place uh around that time as well so it was really interesting at the time there were no
Members of the divine nine on our campus we were an interest uh chapter if you will interest colony is what they called it and so interacting with the white fraternities and sororities and the members of alpha kappa alpha um brought about a lot of learning opportunities
One in particular i don’t know if you guys still have airwave and greek fest um you have the sing-alongs and things like that um prior to us participating it was really fun in games it was real cute and everything and then we introduced of course stepping strolling and choreographing actual dances and
Routines for the competitions and that stepped up the level um for everyone else so um i can’t even recall which organization did it but somebody wanted to do a unity um routine and so they decided to purchase the sorority and fraternity shirts and different members of their sorority wore
Different divine nine t-shirts and for those of you who don’t know that’s taboo that’s a big note because only the members of the respective organizations should wear the t-shirts that’s just a sign of respect um they went through an initiation process that allowed them to say that they are
Members of this particular group and so they wear their shirts with pride and also what we call paraphernalia when you have paraphernalia on you have to step up how you act and respond in certain situations and we revere because the paraphernalia itself carries the letters that we so um
So uh we earned in our own respective ways and so that was an educational opportunity um a teaching moment for them uh in addition it’s interesting that joanna talked about being feeling isolated because we did we were the only black fraternity or sorority on campus and so i think it was sometimes
Difficult for the other organizations to interact with us and understanding what we could and could not do because there were certain things that they could do that we could not and so um also i had the opportunity we actually had a house so in terms of the support of stetson university the staff
They really did want us to succeed we had the house right there i think it’s birdfish road but at the end of sorority road that that corner house was our house i was i served a sorority councillor for a year and that was a really great opportunity for us to have a place
For us to gather not just for chapter meetings but everything and for the other people of color on campus that was a place to go i fondly remember that we allowed people to be able to watch the million man march from our chapter room as well um
And we had a lot of different cultural activities at the house it was a really great gathering space for people of color on the campus so um yeah a lot of great memories but you know we had a program called let’s talk about race in 1997.
Still talking about it now as a reaction to some of the things that took place on campus so wow i’ll stop there no i am loving the honest i i just have to say i’m loving this honest dialogue i think it’s what’s missing a lot of times when we
Get together and we talk and we kind of gloss over to ugly then go straight to what’s really nice and awesome and great about stetson but we don’t want to discuss what’s really underneath it all and that’s you can’t you know we can’t heal if we just continue to
Just cover over scabs so justin you are currently on campus you want to give us your experience yeah i’d love to share and i’ll be you know i know impressive time so i’ll be brief um my experience on stetson’s campus has been uh kind of touching though
And i’ve only been active in the organization for two and a half going on three years now um as far as our involvement with stetson we have had some uh we’ve had some very great moments i remember one of my the high of my the highlight of my stetson experience
And i i’m talking about my entire stetson experience was uh my first semester freshman year when the uh when the people in the organization uh my pro fights as we call them people that came before me they held a yard show right in front of sampson hall and you know
All of you know where extension hall is in in the middle of the school right beside the fountain and i remember being there uh you know just falling in love with not only the organization even more but being able to feel like i had
I had a safe place to go to you know i can honestly and truthfully say i have never seen so many so many people of color in one area at stetson’s campus at one time and it was it was a really great feeling you know it was a really great feeling
Knowing that even though i am at a pwi there are still people that look like me share the same history as me share the same background as me so that gave me that gave me a very great sigh of relief and i that like i mentioned that’s my favorite moment at stetson
And i feel like it will be forever as i’ve been in the organization longer you know i’ve started to take on leadership roles i’ve started to see you know some of my chapter brothers move on and start their lives things have things have become hard you know things have become hard um
We’ve we’ve seen some stuff um where we’ve tried to have like these unity events and type these type of things and uh people people have just blatantly disrespected not only our organization but the npac as a whole and uh it honestly and truthfully speaking seeing and hearing those comments and seeing them
Uh seeing them so easily seeing them roll hearing them roll off the tongue so easily it made me feel like i don’t want to be here anymore and not only me as a whole but my organization uh i i you know i was it danger brought me into tears you know
The fact that even you know we’ve been here my organization’s been here for three years you know the uh sigma grammar has been on campus even longer than we have and we’re still fighting to be recognized you know we’re still fighting to be noticed and that you know
That type of stuff it hurts you know it hurts um i’m i’m really hoping that you know we can we can kind of bridge the gap and kind of eliminate this whole you know npac versus ifc and panhellenic and become one greek unity you know one greek council here at stetson university
Um renee has been ultimate help and help helping bridge that gap but honestly and truthfully it’s going to take more than just you know a couple of people from panhellenic myself and renee and even some of the people from ifc it has to be a conscious effort to change
And i’ve seen the effort from some people but in other people i have seen an effort going in the opposite direction so that’s just a little bit about our experience here that’s my personal experience and talking with somebody from the pendant letting council a couple of days ago when i leave campus
And return in five or six years you know my biggest my my hope is that we were able to kind of make some change we were able to kind of gain that recognition and gained acceptance well just i hope that is not five or six years before you come back i hope you
Come back every year whether it’s homecoming or just to visit um hopefully i mean one day we’ll be able to go back on campus and not do virtual but you know the the the main goal is to keep our people active you know we want to keep our alumni
Active on campus we want to keep you guys coming back that’s how we give and take and you know offering our talents and offering our gifts not just monetary back to the university is how i believe we start building and we start taking care of and we start being able
To move forward um but so you’ve kind of touched on it a little bit and i think each one of you kind of did what do you think step what do you think stetson can do to actually increase greek life african american greek life initiative and support these organizations
What is it going to take for us to be able to have two active divine nine organizations on campus at one time um i was saddened to know that sigma gamma rho i was there when uh sigma gamma rho came on it was like dove or something
And you know that first class of sigma uh gamma rho girls that and i literally just found this out a couple weeks ago when i started planning this event that sigma gamma rho was no longer there so what is that then what do we have to do
Who do if we had a chance to talk to an administration if we had a chance to talk to president rookie what is it that we can say that we need that what support and encouragement that we need from the university in order to keep divine organizations at staff
Sure go ahead you’re on the screen justin what are your thoughts okay for me i feel like it start it’s all about uh recognition um i know that i know you know one of the biggest things i noticed when i go on stetson’s campus you know walking around
Even going around the perimeter of the campus are all of the you know fra frat houses and sorority houses with big bold letters of each organization on the side of the building and you know granted it’s not it’s not generally in our history to possess frat houses and things of that
Nature but i believe it’s important to give us that recognition you know and for us i know we don’t really have for five minutes sigma we don’t really have much recognition on campus as far as like a safe space as you mentioned earlier how they had back when she was in school
We’ve kind of been bestowed a a meeting place so to speak but even then it’s not our meeting space it’s more so it’s being leased you know it’s in our name or not but people other people still have access to a faculty staff or whatever um i’ll take that i’ll even include that
To the uh the sg row plot behind sampson hall you know yes they have a plot they have a safer space for them but look at the location of it how often do people go back there you know how often are people walking by how often are people walking back there
I believe there was a sign just put up not too long ago stating that you know it uh this this is a sacred place for sg rose only and if you’re not an ezreal please stay off of it what you take you know why didn’t it
Take years for that even to be noticed so i believe it’s all about recognition i believe it’s all about uh if we want to make if we want to make efforts to try to push the inclusivity of the mphc we need to give the epac more recognition and more noticeable recognition not just
Checking off a box and saying oh we did it you know it’s all about putting ourselves out there for everybody to see alethea do you have any thoughts on it that’s a difficult one i think for me since i’m not on the campus as much um shortly after i graduated
We also had a a group that were initiated into alpha phi alpha fraternity so one of the biggest things is first of all we’ve already stated that there are nine different unique african american greek letter organizations and when you have a small population of people of color or anyone because that’s another lesson
That any person can join these although they are historically african american greek letter organizations we many of us can attest that we have had members of other races other um so you know very famous ones as a matter of fact so however with the small population of minority students
On stetson’s campus and then to it’s difficult to say hey let’s offer this particular african-american sorority and this fraternity it may not be the one that someone aspires to another thing about um persons who become members of the nphc many of them have seen established members in their community that they’re coming from
And so they aspire to be a particular sorority or fraternity and so again it’s difficult then to say wow we want to maintain this but and then there are people who don’t want to join a greek organization at all and and that’s fine that’s their prerogative
So being able to be all things to all people is really very difficult at some place like stetson university um but when it exists we do want the support and that’s important and so another thing is i think these types of opportunities in which to educate the community because oftentimes if you don’t
Understand a thing you ignore it right or you may disparage it because you just you’re just ignorant of what it is or what it does or who the people are so if there’s a possibility for greek life to somehow encourage when they do have um i think it’s called rush week
That there is a discussion about the divine line within that rush opportunity to orient these members who are coming into these organizations about the place and the history of the national analytic council also in addition we the nphd typically has a relationship the undergraduates with the graduate chapters that are in the respective
Communities um i’m not sure if that happens with the phc but that’s an important connection for us as well but if you’re coming from a different city to attend such a university you may not have that connection with the community so the continuity cannot exist within the student population
Because they cycle every four years so it really has to be the support systems that surround the students i.e greek life staff staff at stetson and then even the community at large that can help to encourage the students to continue to join these organizations and then sustain and maintain it
Excellent sorry how did i do that joanne or patricia one of you um want to weigh in um just for time’s sake do i remember when i was on campus there seemed to be a thought that well we have a divine nine sorority now we need a divine ninth
Fraternity and then we’re gonna start looking at the multicultural fraternity or sorority it was never let’s bring in all the divine nine or let’s bring in anybody who wants to come in it was more like we did one now let’s do the other and everybody’s gonna
You know it was just i knew people who wanted to join aka but because stetson at the time wanted it to be one divine nine sorority and one divine nine fraternity we only brought one on and and and it was sad because i knew that there were women who wanted to join
Aka so wanting to do it being willing to do it and putting money into it is what stetson needs to do okay thank you i’m gonna kind of lighten it a little bit with a question um so here’s your next quiz question sandra before you move on i think also
Can i bring that back on um i will commit i do have uh colleagues friends who are part of the uh nphc nationally um it also has to be a consideration for pwis um it’s very easy for hbcus to be able to increase the membership you know spring or fall year after year
But is there a way that the initiation could be changed um for pwis working with an hbcu or a neighboring school that as patricia said that person can go ahead and be able to join in that way but still be active on their respective campus that is just
Out the box that is just coming it’s actually never heard you know but no actually that’s how it used to be um when i came to stetson and i’m gonna just jump in real real fast um i also felt like justin i did a semester
And i wanted to go i didn’t feel at all welcome i didn’t feel any support and i was coming in as a non-traditional student i was like 30 something years old i had some kids i had husband so i felt that as well it was actually louis hancock who convinced me to stay
She literally was like get involved find some passionate thing and i did that um again my husband who’s gonna answer a question eventually he is greek um when we first came to stetson the map still said that there was an aka house that house ain’t been there so he was
Very excited because he just knew i was about to be at ak we did at that time know have an agreement with bethune cookman so if a student at stetson wanted to become wanted to join a divine night you could apply through uh bethune cookman that is currently not the case right now
There are some things that are happening that i’ve uh talked to uh renee and benicia about so once but then cookman kind of gets their thing back together then they can open that back up as an option for uh stetson students but i also agree that you know when you
Don’t have a population of students that are wanting to join in that’s when you have that breakdown as well but if there’s not that opportunity or enough education about them because honestly i was never educated about greek life until i met my husband it wasn’t something that was within my family
So it’s a lot to work with there and i think that’s where we kind of land at but i’m going to throw out a question because we got to do this real quick though so and patricia and joanna y’all didn’t say anything but we’re gonna see who’s smart what is the
Animal associated with sigma gamma rho oh don’t get an answer troy had it first [Laughter] but you said it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay there it is there it is and for time’s sake because we’re getting there um i did have one more question i think we’ve kind of really covered a
Lot about um you know what stetson’s kind of social justice climate is what what the campus climate has been in the past and what it currently is right now as far as our divine night greek organizations are concerned and you know i don’t want to keep pushing
That but what i would like to know is what are your organizations doing nationally because all of you are in different places um as we go as our nation goes through all of this social justice really heightened climate what are your community what are your organizations doing in their communities to kind of
Help heal and move us forward because that’s one of the models that’s one of the things that’s always attracted me um to greek life even though i was never involved was that there always seemed to be something happening when i met my husband uh they actually had like a teen
A young men’s kind of organization my sons went to learn how to tighter ties and you know just become proper men but as we are in this space right now where so much has happened over the years you know i know that’s something that we also have to grasp with not just that
Stetson but nationally so if you can just kind of briefly tell us what your organizations may be doing that’d be great well i just wanted to chime in real quick what sign is referring to is uh our kapolei program because um you know with uh traditionally african american greek letter organizations
Um we tend to stay active in that alumni space and kind of reach back for the purpose of mentorship and grooming young men to be productive members of society and we also have a guide right program for you know scholarships and uh educational advancement and those sorts of things so just
Just kind of throwing that out there well thank you so is a kappa alpha psi doing anything community wise are we doing any you know anything and if you don’t know or is this not something you’re a mute christopher you’re amusing okay with our whole pandemic situation and the social distancing uh
You know with the just our inability to be able to be in the same close proximity um we’re kind of not as active as we normally would be this time of year so and then you know i’ve been a little disconnected from the chapter with my uh school work and everything like that
But no worries no worries that’s okay we’ll all get back to normal and start doing some pretty amazing things sooner before later justin on campus are we doing anything amazing are there any events happening um or upcoming that we should know about so you know every year we have our annual
Uh march of dimes fundraiser and it’ll be so what march of dimes is we’re collecting money to uh we’re collecting money to give back to the american cancer society and the american red cross in an effort to uh help babies with bone birth defects is what that is now we do that annually
Around this time of year and it’s been a little delayed because because of the entire goal pandemic and whatnot earlier this year however we did once we got back on campus we had a uh pretty much a national mandate and whatnot where the state directors from every
Or the directors from every state were given given an abundance of masks and we were encouraged to pass those masks out so around i want to say around september when we first started to arrive back on campus we had our chapter had an event where we sat outside
The carlson union building and passed out mass to uh passed out mass and gave out little bottles of hand sanitizer to everyone that walked by um you know we just wanted to encourage them to a actually wear the mask but also be protect themselves protect their families friends and whatnot and
Actually practice these safe uh protocols provided by the cdc our alumni chapter has also held our our alumni chapter is also assisting when it comes to facilitating when it comes to facilitating these ppe distributions and whatnot and also our we we have been encouraged you know to kind of look we’ve been
Encouraged to uh kind of take that next step and get others involved in looking towards a vaccination and help to try to fight this off awesome thank you well i’m definitely going to start following you guys and and i encourage everybody to make sure that um you follow the instagram page at
You guys have an instagram page right yes ma’am okay i would encourage you and whatever social media forms to follow so we can keep up with the events and continue to help support phi beta sigma fraternity at stetson i have one more question then we’re going to show a short video
And then we’ll open it up for q a so last quiz question what is kappa alpha side five i’m sorry what is cap alpha size motto my husband actually said it in his intro i think ryan got it first ryan caleb jasmine chris my god you guys are really on it and i
Love it i love it so we are going while you guys are doing that we are going to show a quick video renee and again this video does have music in it and but i will be having the closed caption on so you are still able to watch it and this video
Is going to talk about the history of stepping and strolling [Applause] whether you call it stepping strolling or party walking one thing’s for sure it’s exciting to be a part of one of the most interesting and insightful subgenres of stepping is strolling also known as party walk jaquie malone defines party walking as
Organized line movement performed around the floor at a party other sources define strolling as a cultural dance often performed in unison and in a circle to symbolize unity and strength like stepping strolling has historical ties to both african and american art forms strolling’s african roots can be traced
Back to south african and ghanaian dance films one particular dance the ring shout is a religious dance produced by african slaves where participants shuffle single file and counterclockwise to music according to sterling stuckey professor of history at northwestern university the ring shout is a sacred ritual in which worshipers shift their feet and
Move their bodies in a circle to symbolize the connection between the past the present and the future strolling’s american roots begin with black greek letter organizations in the mid-20th century when a ritual ceremony called the death march became popular on historically black college and university campuses dr walter kimbrough defines death
Marches as the final activity of the bglo pledge process pledges would spend hours marching around campus reciting poems and singing organizational hands the history of strolling can also be traced back to the black church it was here that hand clapping foot stomping singing and dancing became mainstays in black religious culture
Additional connections include black military gi’s and classic soul music acts like the temptations the supremes and the jackson five today strolling is a staple on college campuses across the country fraternities and sororities hold stroll exhibitions some with cash prizes and scholarships since the mid-1980s many fraternities and sororities
And the national association of latino fraternal organizations also known as now folk have adopted strolling as there are formal choice out of respect for black greek letter organization some do not step but rather participate in strolling as an alternative from death marches to dancehall strolling is now performed in some way
Shape or form by greeks of all councils however there is one rule that you must remember never under any circumstances break the line or interrupt a fraternity or sorority stroke the dominant principle here is respect for the organization as time moves forward we will all witness strolling becoming more popular
Amongst greeks of all councils however it is up to all of us to pass down the history traditions and customs from generation to generation I just want to say i think one of the main things that was said in there was about respect maybe it’s not about just crossing a stroll line a step line but it’s just about respect and when we respect each other we can respect these organizations whether they’re on campus
Or not and we respect the people that are around us and we give them support and we give them encouragement and that’s really what we need from the entire stetson community not just for the divine nine programs but for all of our initiatives that we have at stetson thank you renee
So now i’m going to open it up for question and questions and um and answers but first we had one question come in before the event um and this is for our panel participants and i think we’ve kind of touched on it already a little bit but if you have any more thoughts
I encourage you to jump right in um how can we as members of greek life community support and become better allies for our brothers and sisters and divine nine greek organizations and that is from cullen thank you cullen i just wanted to say i think it’s important as joanna mentioned earlier
It is so simple to just reach out at the beginning of you know remember the summer prior to the start of a school year we would have retreats we would have committee meetings and we would plan out the schedule and so at the beginning since we’re all
Trying to get to know each other and learn about the new leadership being able to have an opportunity whether it’s a mixer whether you say hey let’s have a game tonight you know sororities versus fraternities or but when you’re doing it just be intentional to be inclusive and so not just nphc but
All the greek letter persons should be invited um because i was a sorority counselor i had to meet with all the nphc members um all the respective sorority counselors and i’m really grateful for how my staff member daryl stubbs along with mickey parker were very intentional about how we were
Able to go out and to do out of the box things um to be in spaces that we typically weren’t and we would have to we would have our meetings at each other’s uh sorority uh respective houses and we’d have to cook so he would partner a fraternity counselor and a sorority counselor
And we would have to go ahead and cook dinner for the rest of the counselors when we had our staff meeting and that was good because oftentimes i would never see a lot of these people in my day-to-day routine whether it be i didn’t see them in class
I didn’t hang out with them but because of that experience that year i got to know them on a different level so we have to take what are just simple communal things that we do on an everyday basis and be intentional about including others to be a part in that just to
Widen the circle i don’t think anybody else can say it any other thoughts thank you cullen any other questions for our panel participants there is a question in the chat from emma where it says she’s wondering if anyone from sigma gamma rho could explain more about the significance and meaning of the stage
Behind samson so the plot space the stage i can take this one so something that’s significant about that one particular spot of land is that’s when we entered onto the stetson campus so this area is actually where our chapter of symmegamer road was chartered and so this stage kind of like how
She was saying about the aka having her own house this was actually our only safe space on campus and it holds its significance not only as the entrance into stetson campus but like the one place where we are there where we could be ourselves and also we have a spot on campus that’s
Permanent it says that we are not forgotten we are here even though that they may have put us in the back we’re still there and you can still see us there so when before we actually had the semi-gamma rose sign on there we had many people stepping onto that land
Which was entirely disrespectful now we have that sign and now we have the black sign there is no excuse in order to be stepping on that land think of it as somebody walking into your sorority house or in your fraternity house it just completely trashed into place
Anybody that’s not a member of the organization and anybody that does not have permission from that organization should not be in that space and that’s the same thing with that plot of land so one thing that colin was asking about is how do we support them
If you see somebody stepping on our land if you see somebody rearranging our stones which happen a lot we had somebody change the breast cancer awareness sign that we had there into the shape of a male genital if you see somebody on that land that’s not supposed to be there say something actually
Say hey this is a sacred spot you need to get off hey can’t you read there’s a sign you need to get off so like that’s the importance of the land you don’t want me coming in your dorm room messing up your stuff don’t come into my house and mess up that
So that’s the significance of that spot and if i could just add on to that um biblically speaking and joshua talks about that when the israelites came to a particular place they wanted to market with stones and so when people came upon it they said what mean these stones
And that allowed people who understood the story to tell the next generation the importance and the significance of the stones and so in a larger context so it is not only at stetson this is a replica of what happens at most historically black colleges and universities that sororities and fraternities are
Given their own tree plot of land or even a bench that as joanna said is sacred ground that only those members of that particular organization are really allowed to be there as that creates that safe space and that sacred place that they are proud of that they have a location to say
What is this yellow and blue what is this red and white what is this pink and green on this tree what does it mean it is so significant that when i had a chance to go to howard university i wanted to find the tree with the symbol of alpha kappa
Alpha and take a picture to record that i went to alpha chapter that i was able to stand on that holy ground so you may not have understood that but when you hear the story and the significance it makes you think and then reshape how you see it for yourself
So of course if someone sees a tree if someone sees stones they don’t understand the significance then they can’t have the reverence that it brings and so that’s just again a part of the education that needs to take place awesome i think there’s another question in here renee you see another one
There’s questions in here about housing and what that looks like and while i know some of our panelists might not be able to answer that i’m going to chime in real quick um so know that we are working with our organizations to see what those housing options do
Look like and so know that it’s not necessarily off the table but we do have to see what is available and what this looks like and but also know that there is a patreon sorority involvement advisory board and we are looking at the future of housing for all of our fraternities and sororities
Not just ifc and panhellenic and what that realistically looks like for our whole community so our nphc other if potentially other multicultural organizations join our campus they are also being a part of that conversation as well and there’s going to be more information to come on that too because we
Definitely want our alum and our students and to be a part of that conversation as we move forward that’s awesome thank you renee thank you and just so you know alypia i went on this whole tangent about putting a plaque up for aka because i was really hurt that that
House wasn’t there like we drove around i was like where is it but i understand that that’s not an option right now but we’re gonna do something we’re gonna do something and just so there’s some context where everybody that’s in here there have there are nine african-american greek life organizations
There have only been four different organizations at stetson’s campus today there is only one sigma gamma rho i think you were on campus what five years five years yes that they were able to survive on stetson’s campus and it makes no sense in my opinion that that organization
Could not flourish i understand the overlying issues and involvement of students and interests but we have to do more educating we have to push out we have to be just as inclusive for the finale organizations as we are for all the sororities or fraternities on stetson’s campus
Is the ak house where the wellness house is currently uh renee says yes colin that is words i don’t know somebody why want this conversation um gene um i see your question um about why weren’t these conversations happening beforehand considering the fact that we’ve had multiple divine ninth fraternities and sororities again um
I don’t know the answer to that question um all i can tell you is that you know we’re having it now and we will continue to have these conversations uh again i love the honesty that has come out of it and i don’t think we should stop these conversations now i
Think this is something that we will revisit again as an event in the near future and sanja if i could say i know that to stetson’s credit um a couple years back probably perhaps prior to the uh um chartering of the phi beta sigmas or around that time i know that the orlando
Panhellenic national panhellenic came up and had conversations as to why there wasn’t a divine line presence on the campus of stetson and what could be done about it um so these have been ongoing conversations i just celebrated my silver i’m considered a silver soror which means that i’ve been a member for 25
Years now so it’s it’s it’s been a lot of iterations that have been going on in cycles that’s that’s a thank you so much and congratulations [Laughter] i was going to say i think there have been conversations i just don’t think people have been listening and that’s been the biggest problem i
Remember one time i went to one of the multicultural events and i was talking about how someone said that if you want to hear about black and brown people then you need to take an ethnic studies course and i brought that up on the panel and
Someone said to me well that’s kind of understandable you know and i said well here’s another thing there weren’t any books about women either that we were talking about and someone said well you should take a gender studies course now the woman who said that was understandable about race jumped on
Immediately and said well i don’t understand that i mean genders that’s important we need to talk about both genders and i was like wow that’s kind of ironic because you know when i said it five minutes ago about race you were just saying oh take an ethnic studies course that’s understandable
So the conversations are happening people are being shut down when they say things and i think we really need to actually listen and take action because sony is the only reason why i came for this panel today because i did not have great memories of stetson
Oh i want to hop on this too so i’m just saying that because during my senior year so 2018 to 2019 we actually had a joint event with phi beta sigma and so we were talking about the divine nine so we had a strolling section we had a
History section we had a stepping section we had food we had our alumni’s come out we had all this other stuff and basically only our friends showed up only other african-american students showed up and it was actually we even had culture credit for this and we barely even had anybody for
Panhellenic and maybe like three people from ifc that actually come so i think this goes that’s like my original point we reach out we’re stretching out our hands don’t reject it like that’s the whole purpose of this we have you gotta meet us halfway we can’t go all the way with us
And hopefully this conversation opens that up and people get a better understanding i’m hoping that it has been informative i know i’ve learned a few things that i didn’t know um that we do open up those conversations that people continue to you know stretch hands and someone will you know stretch back and
You know we’ll be able to start healing things that have been definitely broken for a very long time but we have to do the work and the work begins with the education and this is the first of many of those discussions and events to start educating you know our campus our alumni
Myself and our faculty and staff as well you know it’s it’s a universal thing for us to be able to learn from one another and we have to be willing to understand the other perspectives as well i don’t think there are any more questions well before we wrap up
Hello i have one if that’s just kind of reiterate oh no chris hold on for a second i have a stupid question to come in sorry no worries oh hi i’m michaela moorland i just wanted to hop on real quick so at my high school we actually had a
Step team and we had a delta theta sigma delta gym chapter that i was a part of which i know is very surprising whenever i tell people that but the woman who started these organizations on our campus she started with the step team to kind of get people interested
In the culture and the historic significance do you think maybe starting with a step team or something like that could lead to more interest in the divine nine i need somebody [Laughter] what are you guys thoughts patricia i was gonna say um divine lines are about service first
First so i um i don’t know for me it service first is more important than stepping to get people interested so that’s just that’s just me i think for me the reason why we see so many high school step teams is because they’re not members of the sorority of fraternity so
When you take it to a collegiate level that’s a little bit different yeah it’s a little bit different so um again i think uh as patricia said not only service but again the education has to be there and um a real conversation needs to be had with the
You know the uh panhellenic council first because you elect presidents you elect all these officers and so it starts from the head and there needs to be some agreements and commitments from those officers first that they will take the lead and they will be intentional we’re not saying that you know
We’re not asking anyone to force anyone to do anything we are intentionally encouraging people to step out of your comfort zone because not only is it important when you’re on a college campus you don’t only learn in the classrooms much of the education should be outside the classrooms and part of the education
Is the cultural competency is the cultural exchange because you will not have the opportunity to be a part and to interact with so many different people than you will on a college campus and some way we have to really instill that in our young people utilize this canvas and this classroom
To be able to not only change how you think but how you feel and how you choose to treat other individuals and that happens outside the classroom when you break bread and when you exchange ideas and thoughts [Laughter] anything i’m kind of gonna wanna um hey i i get it
Christopher oh chris i’m sorry chris i don’t know what’s going on i know i’m i’m i’m good i think alithea pretty much summed it up pretty well so yeah she did it and it kind of took the words from me so thank you so there’s been a lot of
Conversation in the chat room um it’s been amazing i love the energy that’s in there people are really you know exchanging ideas and wanting to learn more and i will make this commitment right now that this is not the last of any conversation or discussion we have around divine nines or any other
Multicultural diversity and inclusion issues at stetson university um we have been honest tonight we have been intentional about our feelings and we have very much so stated what needs to happen the conversations that need to happen the education that needs to happen i love the break bread and you know and really
Analyze each other but and also the educating outside the classroom i’m gonna use that but this is where we start at and only everybody here in this in this in this zoom event right now can move us forward and it’s just about having those intentional conversations and being honest and
I’m gonna wrap this up with some thank yous first of all i want to thank all my panel participants um many of you don’t know but my family was kind of in the middle of a rough spot for about two weeks or so um and you guys you know y’all
Just came through and i i can’t thank you enough for that um reina just amazing i came up with this idea and the arena just ran so i have to thank her she was so encouraging and so supporting uh she just anything i needed she was there for
Renee benicia who wasn’t able to be with us tonight and her husband who was also supposed to be on the panel um sending them thoughts and prayers renee thank you so much because renee ran the videos because i was like [Laughter] but she was amazing um in our alumni office who called me
Like you got it we need to talk about anything literally a couple hours ago i was like i don’t know it’s gonna be okay we’re gonna make it work um and again just to each and every one of you that decided to take an hour out of your
Day to jump in here and learn a little bit something that maybe you haven’t known before i hope it was educational i hope it was informational for you um i i can’t wait to put on the next event and i hope that each and every one of you will attend
Thank you sonya thank you there’s reena thank you sonja it’s a pleasure well thank you honey i’m i’m honored to have been able to participate thank you thank you so much thank you huge thank you to all our panelists you’ve been wonderful and also the other alumni board members who are on
The call tonight oh yes and um my committee members jj and scott bohr um just so thankful i kind of just was like hey we’re doing this program and yeah and they were like oh okay but the next event is going to be a collective effort
Thank you so much scott i love you i love you too sonia and chris good to see you again also even though from afar take care thank you thank you thank you patricia i’m definitely want to stay in touch with you alithea um i love the fact that we’ve
Um you know kind of found each other and now i’m never letting you go and i promise it’s not just for you know hey jump on an event with me i genuinely want to continue our conversations i genuinely want to continue to love and support and encourage you and whatever you are doing
And i hope the same for me thanks everybody thanks so much thank you a good night justin let us know if you need anything right
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